How to make a wood sign

Ever since we moved in, I have wanted to make the perfect custom wooden sign over our bed. Here is the pinspiration behind it… Visit these crafty blogs, Blooming Homestead and House of Hepworths!

Instead of using pallets like the first picture, I bought four 1×4 8 ft boards at Lowe’s. They cut each board in half for FREE in the lumber department. So then I had 8 four-foot boards :)

I took three scraps of craft wood (around 1×2, but you will need wider!) that we had in the garage and nailed them into the back of the (soon to be) sign to hold the boards together. Once the hubs finally figured out I had a good plan in mind, it became a team project. Sometimes he thinks my ideas sound crazy until he actually sees it in action! Shouldn’t he know by now that it always works out in the end with a little trial and error?

If you haven’t heard the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes song “Home”, look it up. Actually, I’ll save you the trouble. Just click here. It’s not a new song or anything, but I still like it. However much I love Arkansas (and I do), it is not my home as in born and raised, my roots, where my heart and memories and family are. All of that belongs to Missouri, but this is where we are building our life now and my home is wherever I’m with Taylor now. Hence, the song lyrics on the sign. You get the picture. After sanding, painting, distressing, and painting the first coat of yellow for the letters, it turned out like this.

The key to hanging a wooden sign like this is buying large flush mount hangers so the sign hangs flush with the wall. We used 3 Hillman Group large flush mount hangers from Lowe’s. It was $3.28 for two sets of two interlocking clips- one half screws into the back of your sign, the other into the wall. We bought two sets of two because we needed 3- one for each of the 1×2 boards on the back.

Unfortunately, two of my three boards were slightly too narrow for the hardware (by only about a tenth of an inch!). It may have worked but I was afraid of the wood splitting, so I added another row at each section to stabilize it. Don’t make that mistake! We screwed one flush mount hanger into each of the boards, and the other into the wall. The hardest part of this is measuring exactly on the wall so that the clips slide into each other! (Taylor did the math for this part!) He was worried about the weight of the sign being above our heads, but these flush mount hangers aren’t going anywhere.

We marked where it would go on the wall with pencil and chalk. Sorry I only have one shot of prepping the wall and it is messy and a weird angle! So here is Taylor focusing on getting the measurements.

Our finished product

This project was under $15 because we already had the paint and it only took a few hours. School is out this week so I’ll clean our room and take more pictures that I won’t be embarrassed to post, but I think it is a great focal point above our bed. What do you think? Please leave a link to any similar projects you have done!

Katie, You did a great job on your sign. Your tutorial is AWESOME!!!! I love how you gave every detail so anyone and everyone can know how to make their own sign. I just finished my first sign earlier this week and I’m sooo excited to make another one. Before I read your post I too went to Lowe’s and got 1x4x8′ boards. You know what they say, “great minds think alike.” LOL Please keep up the awesome posts. And have a blessed day.

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